The End of a Conspiracy
by skorso
Summary: After the death of a beloved friend, the Jeffersonian team races to find the people behind the conspiracy that took away a part of their lives.
1. Chapter 1

**This is based after Episode 1 of Season 10. You need to watch before reading because there are major spoilers. **

**I was very disappointed with the conclusion of the last episode and am going to do my best to write my own little theory of what will happen after. Don't worry, I'm still working on "The Past in the Present" but I wanted to scramble some of this down and share the little I had. Let me know what you think, just be nice :) **

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><p><strong>Prologue:<strong>

Reaching for the scalpel, Dr. Camille Saroyan reluctantly brought it over to her old friend, Doctor Lance Sweets. Her hand shook uncontrollably and she tried her best to steady it. "It's just another body," She whispered quoting Doctor Brennan who she glanced at and nodded.

Just as she brought the blade down, Caroline strode into the room waving a paper in the air, "Hold on, people," She said then paused when she saw Lance. "Oh dear lord." She quickly turned around and walked out. "Don't you do anything to… him." She was obviously struggling on how to refer to the corpse on the table.

"Caroline, what are you doing?" Booth asked. Just before he received an answer, suited men walked past them and into the autopsy room and began packing Sweets' body back up.

"What's going on?" Brennan demanded stepping between the men and the body.

"Court order for… Sweets' body," Caroline explained.

"What?" Squeaked Daisy Wick, "No, they can't do that. Why?"

Caroline addressed Daisy compassionately, "You're all too close to the case. They're taking the body to be autopsied somewhere else."

"They can't do that!" Brennan insisted defiantly. "We're the best at what we do and have to find who killed him."

"Sorry Cheri, all the information they get will be sent to you but there's nothing else I can do."

Booth paced angrily. There was already so much going on that he had no control over and now this.

Being liable to the law, they stood aside quietly as Sweets' body was zipped up and rolled away. "I can't believe this," Angela said once they were gone.

Caroline glanced at her with a look of guilt. Booth kicked the table and marched out of the room followed by the rest of the team.

"Where are you going?" Brennan asked as he seemed to have a destination.

"I'm taking this to the authorities," He nearly shouted rearing around.

"Agent Booth," Caroline said in a correcting tone, "You are not about to go fighting for Sweets' body. You're going to focus on the current case and find out who killed him while you wait for the autopsy report to help with that."

Booth paused, breathing heavily and obviously very angry. "I swear," He pointed a finger, "I will kill the son of a bitch who did this." Those being his last words he walked out of the Jeffersonian watched closely by his friends.

**Chapter 1**

… **5 months later**

While cases came and went, all of the Jeffersonian team raced to find out who was behind the conspiracy - and who killed Sweets. Daisy Wick began hanging around more with Brennan than she ever did before, especially with Lance Jr. due in but a couple of weeks. Although Booth's personality was still altered he had mellowed a little bit and directed more attention to his family. None of this would have happened without the help of Gordon Wyatt who had offered his condolences and his help after he heard about the death of the young psychiatrist. Booth's place in the FBI had been reestablished and any effort the FBI had to replace Sweets with a new psychiatrist was immediately denied. Even though Wyatt tried to reason that maybe it would be beneficial to have one, Booth held his ground. He refused to hire anyone new until they found who took Sweets away from them.

That day, near Christmas, Brennan finished putting away a case she and Booth had just finished. Relieved she had a small break from this; she pulled out Lance's file. Severe blunt trauma to his head had been the cause of death, evidently. _Evidently. _She hadn't been the one to examine the bones making her very skeptical of everything in the file. After his autopsy, his body had been cremated, according to Daisy's wishes. Though Brennan wasn't happy about this she accepted Daisy's choice. Daisy trusted these people with her baby's father's body, she had to believe they did well, so Brennan never shared her doubt.

From the last thing she had seen of Sweets, blunt trauma appeared to be an accurate deduction, she was confident with that. But had she seen the remains she could have possibly found out the weapon. All that was provided by the other doctors was that it was a hard blunt object. After talking with Booth, they both assumed this had been their choice to take him out so there could be no way to track down a weapon, like a gun.

There was a knock on her office door, she looked up and saw Booth looking at her. "Any luck?" he asked, with little hope. It was the same question he had been asking her for months now, and with the same answer.

"No," she replied looking down at the paper again. Maybe they missed something. Maybe _she _missed something. "Booth," this theory had been wracking at her brain for a while and she feared saying it out loud and Booth confirming her fears, "What if the doctors who did his autopsy were a part of the conspiracy and haven't given us all the information."

He could sense the concern in her voice. Sitting down Booth looked deeply into his wife's eyes, "Bones, we'll find these bastards and make them pay." He said assuredly although he wished he could subside those fears but he couldn't be sure himself.

"Is this your gut telling you that?" She asked with a small smile.

His cocky smile played on his face, "Yeah, and you know to trust my gut." Even though she looked slightly relieved, they both knew that guts weren't going to find the people who did this.

"I still don't know where to go from here," She admitted, "we're where we were months ago. There have been no leads."

"I know," Booth sighed, "but lingering on what we haven't accomplished won't help."

Brennan chuckled, "You sound like a shrink."

Booth sighed again rolling his eyes, "I've been seeing Gordon Gordon too much. Look, I appreciate everything he's done but I think he's being a little too clingy."

"He's just trying to help," Brennan said.

"Yeah."

A lingering silence played between the two of them until Booth slapped the armchair and stood up, "Well I'm going to get back to the Bureau and see if Caroline or Aubrey have gotten anything."

"Okay, love you," Brennan extended her neck and kissed Booth. He departed the room and Brennan glanced over the file again exhaling. She knew if she could find one thing, she could take the next step. She had to find something.

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><p>"Beck, what are you doing here?" Booth asked walking into his office and spotting CIA agent Danny Beck standing in front of his desk. He was always a little suspicious when the CIA was sticking it's nose in places.<p>

"Seeley," Buck extended a hand which Booth shook, "Good to see you. I came here to see if you would be open to my offer now?"

Just after Sweet's death, Beck had come offering to assist in the case, but Booth denied the offer, not sure what Beck's hand in it would mean. Not that he didn't trust his old army buddy, but he couldn't be sure if Beck was offering help for friendship or CIA purposes. The last thing he needed was for the CIA to possibly find out the conspiracies were of foreign intelligence and then take away their case.

"Yeah, you know, I still don't think that's necessary," Booth said with politer words than his tone.

Beck nodded, "Sure I get it. But just so you know, I've got one of my guys keeping an eye on Hugo Sanderson. Obviously, I can't really tell you anything but if I get something that might help you guys I'll give you a call."

Booth looked at him uneasy and wary. "Thanks," He said simply. This is just want he _didn't _want, if Beck, or the CIA, were watching Sanderson, that could mean it would soon be out of the league and it's the CIA's hands.

Curling his lips and shaking hands Beck left the room just as Caroline slid past him. "What is that? Third offer?"

"Fourth," Booth said finally sitting down. "Forget it though, the CIA isn't about to steal my case. What do you have for me?"

A look of annoyed disappointed struck Caroline, "Nothing. I've tried getting info into Mr. Hugo's background but they have that sealed up tighter than Area 52."

"Maybe Angela can," Booth hinted.

Caroline raised that skeptical brow. "Cheri, if you want to get anything on Sanderson you're going to have to do it the legal way. "

Booth, frustrated, tossed his ball into the air. "What about Aubrey? What's he got?" Although Aubrey was knew and Booth had been hesitant to trust the young agent, Aubrey managed to snuggle in his trust to Booth.

Caroline shrugged, "I think he's run into as many dead ends as I have. Whoever is behind all of this sure has their lid screwed on tight."

She was right. They weren't dealing with some amateurs. Someone was trying to hide something and they would go to whatever end they had to to keep it hidden. When Caroline left the room, Booth noticed he had four messages on his answering machine. Playing them while boredly tossing his ball into the air he listened to the first message from Stark asking him to do a presentation. Sure, Stark could move on, but Booth was still stuck on one case. Fed up with the pointless messages Booth was just about to turn them off when the fourth message played a deep, modified voice.

"_Agent Booth_," it said, "_Hugo Sanderson, black inbox box, 15.16.38cloverred._" The voice ended with the machine's beep. Frozen and in shock, Booth replayed the messaged. Phoning Angela quickly, he downloaded the message to his computer.

"Hey what's up, Booth?" She answered.

"I'm sending you something, I need you to figure out what it means." he said urgently.

"Yeah, sure is everything okay?" She asked with obvious concern in her voice.

He sent her the voice via email, "I think I got something on the McNamara case."

"Seriously? Booth that's great!" She barely finished her sentence before Booth could hear her playing the message. "I'm not sure what this means but I'll figure it out."

"Can you find out where it came from?" Booth asked, feeling the excited anxiety building in his chest.

"Yeah, hang on a sec."

He nervously waited as she no doubt searched on her giant TV thing.

"No, it was a disposable phone; this guy probably used some sort of app to modify his voice. I tried tampering it to see if I could get the original voice but it's too jumbled. He, or she, used different tones, pitches and it's likely he even talked in a different voice than his own. It sounds like he was trying to imitate some accent. Maybe British, but there's no way that's his real accent."

"Thanks, Angela," Booth said, "Let me know what you get about the message."

"Got it," After that, they hung up.

He might have just found their key to ending this long charade. Of course he wanted to know who sent the message but he didn't want to question it too much. This was a good thing, he wasn't about to strip it naked and find out it was a hoax. He was holding onto the little hope he finally found in these last five months.


	2. Chapter 2

**Here's Chapter 2! Thanks for keeping up :) It means a lot and makes me feel less like a horrible writer. (Given I'm not Ray Bradbury...) **

**So, honestly, I don't know if I'm going to keep watching Season 10 or anything thereof. Not until this story is done at least. I want to write this completely free of influence by events that transpire in the show. This is what I wish would happen and think should but know won't. Please feel free to leave a review but be gracious ^^ **

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><p><strong>Chapter 2 <strong>

Angela viciously attempted to decode the anonymous message. Just like everyone else, she felt so powerless in finding the person who killed Sweets and sent Booth to jail. She watched the security tapes a million times and the only thing she got from it was a male, dressed in black, approximately 5'8. He hadn't left in a car so she couldn't track him down by his license, and by the time the killer had reached the outside he managed to duck out of any camera's point of view. She tried to hack into Hugo Sanderson's background, disregarding the consequences of her actions, but it was sealed tight. However, with this new information from Booth she reentered her hunt for answers.

As she raced through the possibilities of the meaning behind the message, she mulled over what 'black inbox box' could mean. In her search nothing came up so it had to be something Sanderson or the caller had come up with.

Inbox as in mail? Email? It was the most logical assumption. She opened Sanderson's email. Even though almost any possibly incriminating email was encrypted she did manage to get the password into the email. Maybe 'black' meant hidden? She wasn't sure but she searched wholeheartedly. There wasn't anything in his emails that 'black' made any sense. Speeding around, testing multiple theories and hitting constant dead ends she continued to look. Eventually, she stopped and while opened to the front email page she simple typed the numbers '15.16.38' and immediately a password box popped up. Her breath caught, and she couldn't help but wonder if this could be too good to be true. She input the last of the information 'cloverred.' Her heart stopped. Picking up the phone she called Booth.

"Brennan!" She shouted at the top of her lungs, "Guys, get in here!"

Brennan, Cam, and Hodgins came rushing into the room with looks of the utmost concern written on their faces. Brennan was the only one not suited up in her blue coat, most likely she had been in her office reading over Sweet's and the other victims' files again. Fortunately, now Angela might have something that would get her nose out of the files and into the field with Booth.

"What's wrong, Ange?" Hodgins asked just as Booth answered.

"_Did you find something?_" Implored Booth answering the phone with anticipation in his voice.

Angela put him on speaker phone, "Okay listen, with the information I got from the message I went into Sanderson's email account and opened up what I'm guessing was the 'black inbox box' thing. It has a bunch of hidden transaction for thousands of dollars. At first I didn't know where he was getting the money until I looked into the McNamara's Bank information and each time Sanderson was getting money into his account, the same amount was being withdrawn from the McNamara's."

"Oh my god," Cam breathed.

"_What were they paying him for?_" Booth asked.

"I'm not sure yet. But all the money coming from the McNamara's was linked to the account they used for their Cruis Security."

Hodgins laughed, "You did it, Angela." He walked up to her and landed a solid kiss on her lips while cupping her face.

She scoffed lightheartedly, "Yeah, well I couldn't 't have without that message."

"Message?" Cam inquired.

"_I got an unknown message this morning with some info on Hugo Sanderson._" Booth explained.

"Could Angela trace the call?" Brennan asked looking at the phone as if Booth actually were there.

Angela said, "No. And he covered his track completely."

Nonetheless, Brennan smiled, obviously relieved. She hugged Angela and when backed up announced excitedly, "I'm going to call Daisy…" Retrieving her phone, Brennan dialed Daisy's number and left the room where Angela returned to the screen and began looking for anything else she could get.

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><p>Daisy Wick rubbed her bulging tummy and stood before the Columbarium with hesitation. Everyday since the horrible day her Lancelot had died she had periodically visited, but each time she stood outside for at least five minutes, pausing.<p>

Taking a long respiration she strode inside and to the urn where her dear Lance was; she placed a daisy in front of a plate that read "Lance Sweets 1985 - 2014." Stroking her stomach again she sighed, tears stinging her eyes. She had told herself she had to stop crying every time she came to visit. She didn't want her visits to be something always plagued by sorrow. She wanted every second with Lance to be something happy - like everyone moment she had with him when he was alive.

"Lance Jr. has been kicking a lot," She whispered in her squeaky voice, "I think he's about ready to come out." She swayed and managed a smile. "I started reading him your psychology books, he's going to be a genius just like his mommy and daddy," he voice took into baby talk and she tilted her head with a soft smile and another smile. "I promise, Lancelot," She said suddenly serious, and looking up, "I'll find out who did this." Stroking the plate clean of dust, Daisy blew a kiss and turned to leave.

She wanted to stay longer but she also wanted to go to the Jeffersonian and work the files with Dr. Brennan. They hadn't gotten anywhere in the last five months but Daisy was full of the same amount of hope she had started with.

Digging into her purse Daisy began to dig for her phone which started ringing. "Hello?" She chimed placing the device to her ear. Gasping she squealed excitedly and said, "I'll be there right away." Racing respectively to her car she couldn't wipe the smile off her face.

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><p>After calling Daisy, Brennan met with Booth in front of Sanderson workplace, leaving Daisy to work the files until she got back. Just as Sanderson exited the building Booth took a step from behind the pillar in Hugo's path. Sanderson jumped, startled and snarled at the two of them. "What are you doing here?" He asked aggressively but continued walking.<p>

"What were the McNamara's paying you for?" Booth asked. He didn't bother following Sanderson when he started walking because he knew his question would stop the man in his steps.

Spinning around obviously shaken up, he looked at Booth, slowly- and quietly - asking, "How did you know about that?" The threat in his voice was replaced with vulnerability.

"You're avoiding the question," Brennan pointed out in a matter of fact tone.

Shooting her a very agitated glance, Sanderson began spewing, "This is the second time you've harassed me. Now I'm warning you…"

"Mmm, Bones, listen to that, I think our good Mr. Sanderson _is _avoiding our question which normally means that someone did something real bad… And I don't think he can go running to Stark this time." Booth said in a smooth, almost belittling tone.

"I agree with you, Booth." Brennan nodded smiling at Sanderson.

Fuming, Sanderson spat, "You don't know what you're getting yourself into! You should get yourself out of this mess before someone else has to get hurt."

"Excuse me?" Booth demanded taking an intimidating step to Sanderson who shied away sheepishly. Was he implying Sweets death? Booth wondered immediately.

"Look, look, I'm on your side, but I can't answer your questions, Agent," Sanderson said backing up to the car waiting for him.

Just before Sanderson slipped into the confines of his car, Booth snatched his tie and leaned in, "If anyone gets hurt I will personally come to you and make sure you _know _about it." Releasing him with a shove, Booth backed away as Hugo Sanderson drove away in his car.

"What do we do now?" Brennan asked facing Booth, discouraged Sanderson hadn't said anything valuable.

Placing his hands on his side Booth contemplated the situation for a moment. "We get a warrant for Sanderson's information…" Booth said heading to the SUV.

Brennan followed briskly. "Do we have enough for a warrant?" She asked doubtfully.

"We're talking about Caroline, she can do anything," Even he doubted his own words but they had to do something.

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><p><strong>Right now I'm trying to pan out what's going to happening so I can't promise how soon the next chapter will be out. Also, "The Past in the Present" currently has a chapter undergoing editing so that should be next. Thanks everyone! :) <strong>


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